Cheap George Antheil: The Lost Sonatas (Music) (George Antheil, Guy Livingston) Price

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Customer Reviews of George Antheil: The Lost Sonatas

Musical (and up-to-tempo) performances
Like those of many twentieth-century composers--including some of the better-known ones---George Antheil's works have frequently been available (when available) in poor recorded peformances. This has not always been the performers' fault: Cost of rehearsal and recording time often made impossible even the sort of performances that would be minimally acceptable if the music was by Mozart or Beethoven. In the case of Antheil's difficult music, performers' honorable desire to present unknown works in note-perfect renditions has sometimes resulted in carefully slow (not to say plodding) performances that don't give a listener any sense of the excitement the music can generate. Guy Livingston has managed not only to get all the notes (where I was able to check a score) but does so with the same musicianship that one would simply expect for more familiar music. He plays the music as if it is the greatest music ever written. Of course it isn't---but that is how a performer ought to play anything he or she takes on. It is now finally possible to begin to make a just assessment of Antheil's music.